I am actually fine with most of the adjustements audyssey has made. The distances were right on, and all speakers were calibrated equally. I did adjust my right surround down 1/2 a db so that it would read 75db alog with the others. I am just not sure if I like the room eq adjustments, but those are easily disabled.

I may turn the gain down on my subwoofer and calibrate with an spl meter to get the sub at about 75 db when it is set at 0 instead of -12 db.

Someone at AVS suggested that may improve my bass with the audyssey eq, and that I could even run the audyssey settings again with the sub calibrated before hand.

i am not sure why any of that would make a difference, but I may give it a shot.

Things are sounding really good now. I popped in the 300 on HD DVD and watched about 5 minutes if it.

T, you should consider that maybe bass "almost not even noticeable" is the way things should be, which Audyssey has recognized, but you want to hear more. As I've pointed out frequently, the sub isn't supposed to be audible as a separate entity; the impression should be that it isn't on, but the speakers are putting out more bass. It's quite frequent for subs to be run too "hot" because folks want to hear all that money they spent on them, but high fidelity implies a more natural balance. Again, however, the option is always there to turn it up a bit over the calibrated level.

I think the sub is running about the same whether the audyssey eq is on or off. I beleive it is the m80's that sound much thinner when the audyssey eq is on. When I put the audyssey eq on 'bypass L/R' They sound much more 'full'. I don't think this makes any changes to the sub at all

Now which one is right I don't know, but the m80's sound better to me with no audyssey equalization.

I may try and run the audessey set up agqain with my sub pre-calibrated as I mentioned... I still don't see how that could make a difference but who knows.

Pull up the EQ graphs and tell us where Audysey put the FR bands for the mains. You may just need to bump up / down one of the bands to get the sound you want. It has my M80’s 6 db low at 62H. I raised them to 0 and it made a world of difference….to the better.

I’m not saying it’s good or bad. Audysey thinks that is what’s needed to produce a “like” FR from all speakers according to your particular room acoustics.

Why not try a manual setting? It can’t hurt anything as you can always revert back to the auto settings.

Just go into the manual set up, select “copy curve” and it will take you to the next screen where you can then raise / lower all nine bands at will. After you play with them, just toggle between your manual settings and the Audysey settings. I would start out with adjusting the mains first. Just take it in small steps so you can track the changes and see / hear the differences.

I found that with the Audesey settings, I felt as if the mid range was lacking. I bumped up the mains in the mid range and couldn’t be happier. That may be all you need to do.

The denon had my fronts set to -10db at the 63 Hz mark. I changed them both to -5db and noticed a significant improvement.

When I have more time I will do more comparison.

At this point the audessey curve has a lack of bass for most sources/types of music (it actually sounds pretty good on some of them), and turning off the audessey curve or bypassing the mains leaves the bass a little too boomy and in your face. I think I can find something in between that suits my tastes. With the 63 Hz set at -5db it seems ok, allthough I may adjust this a bit later when I find some more time for comparison.

Damn...I can't make up my mind! I need to buy an AVR for my brother in law. It's either the Denon 3808 or Marantz 8002.

I have the 8001 now and like it, but I *hate* the fact that I have to take it in to a service center to get the FW upgraded. HDMI 1.3 (and various HD audio decode) being what it is, I'm *sure* upgrades will be required. That alone may tip it in the Denon's favor.

Feature set wise, I don't think I can go wrong with either unit. But since I've never owned a Denon, I'm going on reputation alone. That and reading every post on the AVS forum about the units. So far, there doesn't seem to be too many complaints. Damn, I hate being indecisive!